


Hungry Things

by queerofhearts



Series: He Maketh Me [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Asexual Aziraphale (Good Omens), Asexual Crowley (Good Omens), Asexual Relationship, Aziraphale is a hedonist, Cooking, Crowley Cooks (Good Omens), Crowley's Favorite Musical is Little Shop of Horrors, Food, Food Porn, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Idiots in Love, M/M, Other, Pining, Romantic Gestures, Self-Esteem Issues, Sensuality, oh the pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:40:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24706969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queerofhearts/pseuds/queerofhearts
Summary: The easiest way for a demon to give his angel goodness is through food.When Crowley shows up with pad thai, or takes Aziraphale to a new tasting menu, or leaves boxes of biscuits on the kitchenette shelf, Aziraphale accepts it all, smiling, happy, unsuspicious, no accusation of demonic wiles. He gets what he likes, which is food, and Crowley gets what he likes, which is to make Aziraphale happy. A rather good arrangement, lowercase a.~Crowley learns to cook.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: He Maketh Me [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1891057
Comments: 33
Kudos: 126





	Hungry Things

_The merest suggestion of mouth  
_ _and I was ravenous—I filled the house  
_ _with chocolate, chestnuts, strudel,  
_ _blood sausage; I bathed in butter._

_~_

Walking back to the bookshop after The Ritz, Crowley was accosted by an especially daring fruit vendor. You don't usually get a lot of sales pitches when you're wearing all black and sunglasses and a scowl.

Five minutes later, Aziraphale skipped into his shop, humming, arms laden with plastic cups of sliced melon, pineapple, and grapes. Close behind, Crowley had to duck his head to avoid the bright, incriminating beam of the angel’s smile, but it managed to infect him all the same. Joy spread like fire inside his chest, lightly tinged with a rare new addition: hope.

~

Ripping off the lid of the bin, Crowley hurls another batch of dough into the rubbish. Really, “dough” is a charitable name for the misshapen lump of wet flour. He throws himself down at his computer to watch the recipe video again, a sigh hissing through his teeth. If the essential ingredient was so difficult to assemble, how was he supposed to balance an entire dish? How did humans do this every _day_?

He scrubs his mouth with his hand, replaying the pasta portion of the video tutorial. They make it look _effortless_. Smiling apron-clad bastards.

Crowley considers his kitchen with its gleaming, untouched finishes. It would be easier and possibly tastier if he got the dish from a restaurant. He could even pretend he cooked it. But he knew that would defeat the entire purpose.

He shuts the laptop harder than he intends.

Lurching to his feet, Crowley snaps his fingers and Solomon Burke fills the kitchen. _Better_. Singing along, he heaps spoonfuls of flour into the bowl on the scale, carefully presses a well in the center, and begins cracking eggs.

~

They dined together over oysters in Rome. Though he dressed like a native, Aziraphale stood out, as a ray of sunshine personified was wont to do. They chatted on the way to Petronius’s, the angel apparently not noticing how each passerby’s gaze slid to him, hungry. Crowley offered them all extremely serpentine grins.

It was understandable, he mused, watching Aziraphale squeeze lemon enthusiastically and knock back each oyster. The nature of humanity was to indulge in evil but crave divinity, and here it was walking among them. Aziraphale was all the good parts of heaven in a particularly appealing package.

And he was cute. (There was no avoiding this description.)

Aziraphale closed his eyes, savoring the taste of the oyster in his mouth and chewing lightly before he swallowed, humming his pleasure and immediately reaching for another.

Staring with his elbows propped on the table, Crowley was struck with a sudden vision of the angel lying back on a sofa, people all around feeding him grapes and drizzling wine into his open, eager mouth. As he watched Aziraphale’s lips purse around an oyster shell, he imagined the hot wetness of those lips wrapped around Crowley’s fingers, sucking sweet juice off his skin.

“What do you think?” Aziraphale asked, dissolving his reverie. He rubbed his nose and mouth with one hand, stoutly _not_ thinking that it would be a better use of his time to kneel down and worship at the angel's feet.

“Bit slimy, innit.” Crowley used a pinkie to prod at an oyster sitting in its own watery goo. Aziraphale pinched his lips together and smacked his hand lightly, setting Crowley’s skin tingling, tiny flames licking along his nerves.

“It’s about the _taste_ , Crowley. There’s nothing else like it. It’s the most delicate flavor in the oceans.” As if to convince by example, the angel helped himself to another, fixing Crowley with an emphatic look as he chewed and swallowed.

Sliding his gaze away from Aziraphale’s lips took an unreasonable amount of effort. Crowley cleared his throat, taking one of the empty shells and spinning it on the table like a top. “Humans. Give them all manner of creatures and all they do is look for different ways to _eat_ them.”

Someone snorted. Crowley looked up to see Aziraphale covering a smile with the back of one delicate hand. The demon arched a brow and sank sharp teeth into the skin inside his lower lip. Aziraphale swallowed and coughed, attempting to relax the corners of his mouth without much success.

“Well. They are _humans_ , after all,” he reasoned, meeting Crowley’s eye. Crowley grinned.

Cute. No other word for it.

~

_A glimpse of tongue and I was undone,  
_ _simply a hint of heavy cream  
_ _and the wax came off in a greasy slab,  
_ _there were no cauldrons large enough._

~

Four days after the not-Armageddon, Crowley brought a half dozen donuts to the bookshop, claiming they would pair beautifully with Aziraphale’s ’97 Ermitage l'Ermite. In the spaces between his varying opinions on posthumously published books, Aziraphale licked sugar and icing from his fingers and Crowley felt warmth run roughshod through him, banging around in his body, eventually wearing out and settling in the tips of his fingers and toes.

~

Little nests of long, thin pasta sit happily on a sheet tray. It had taken a week of under-salted pots of water, wrestling with a pasta machine, and whacking his thumbs with a rolling pin, but Crowley finally ended up with chewy and tender noodles.

He's eager to start on the pancetta. With six thousand years under his belt, he sort of expected to pick up precision knife skills by osmosis, but it takes several goes before he achieves neat cubes of more or less the same size. He indulges in a miracle to get rid of the evidence of his porcine failures.

Unfortunately, Crowley soon discovers that bubbling bacon fat may be the hottest substance on the planet. Also, that his flat came with a sprinkler-equipped smoke detector.

~

Crowley sleeps to get a break from the inside of his head.

If he doesn’t, and there’s nothing on, and he’s already gone ‘round to the bookshop too often, he’ll start thinking far too hard about far too many things, or, more often, just one thing. His brain will work itself into a churning frenzy, and he’ll toss his body around the flat, onto and across various surfaces, finally the bed, as though to shake something loose, as though to settle something down.

Staring at the ceiling, Crowley will think about the unbearable lightness of his angel.

Aziraphale could look old at times. When he sets down a newspaper, takes off his glasses, and rubs at his eyes, sighing. When he carefully pours himself a cup of tea, then dumps it down the drain and pulls the stopper off a whiskey decanter. Crowley can see the 6,000 years of humanity’s suffering in his eyes, in the set of his jaw, how much it weighs on him, the uncertainty, the doubt, the self-loathing for each time he had to comply with the next phase of an Ineffable Plan that necessitated child-sized coffins.

Thankfully, those moments aren’t frequent.

When Aziraphale opens a shipment of rare books, his eyes alight with wonder, or when he returns to a restaurant and the staff remembers his order perfectly, excitement obvious in his flustered smiles, Crowley can almost forget the times he’s seen Aziraphale cradling corpses in his arms. It’s so obviously miraculous, how the angel has seen as much terrible, soul-blacking shit as Crowley has, yet he can still do things like eagerly pull out a deck of cards at the slightest prompt for a magic trick, or coo with unparalleled delight each time he meets a baby. (Aziraphale _loves_ babies. The feeling is always mutual.) 

Though it’s rare to see Aziraphale with emptiness in his eyes, Crowley still needs to give him as many good moments as possible. He knows better than anyone the terrible things Aziraphale has witnessed, and therefore how much he deserves all the goodness in the world.

And the easiest way for a demon to give his angel _goodness_ is through food.

When Crowley shows up with pad thai, or takes Aziraphale to a new tasting menu, or leaves boxes of biscuits on the kitchenette shelf, Aziraphale accepts it all, smiling, happy, unsuspicious, no accusation of demonic wiles. He gets what he likes, which is food, and Crowley gets what he likes, which is to make Aziraphale happy. A rather good arrangement, lowercase a.

Every so often, in response to a secretly ordered dessert or a spontaneous soft pretzel in the park, Aziraphale will throw Crowley a sunbeam of a smile, catching him off guard, as he feels the warmth of it brush his skin like a physical touch. Crowley always has to look away and mutter something distracting.

Because he knows he doesn’t deserve such gestures. And more than that, he knows that Aziraphale’s smiles aren’t really caused by him. It’s simply his heavenly nature, his God-given goodness, all that divinity fired up inside him, and every so often it escapes like a ray of light from a fluttering curtain. Crowley just happens to be in the way when it does.

After a while, Crowley had come to believe that this must to be a part of his punishment for Falling. To be drawn to this walking, talking, smiling, radiantly beautiful piece of heaven, following him around the world until its end. To see each time the angel was wounded by the sins of humanity, knowing that he was the source of humanity's original sin. To be burned by the light of his angel, but never really get to _have_ him, knowing he didn’t even deserve to occupy the same space.

It was fitting, he supposed, of a God who had proved Herself to be a right bastard.

~

Crepes in the middle of a revolution, indeed.

Aziraphale may have been dressed like a patriotic Frenchmen, but his fussy knife work betrayed him to be of the aristocratic stock. At a corner table in a cafe, where the roar of the crowd and deadly thud of the guillotine could no longer be heard, Crowley downed his coffee mercilessly as the angel cut a wide strip of rolled crepe, then sliced it in half for a mouthful-sized piece. With his knife he scooped strawberry compote on top, then slipped it into his mouth.

Aziraphale’s expression softened, eyes fluttering shut, mouth working delicately as he hummed and savored this first bite. The abject pleasure on his face was akin to someone in the throes of amorous carnal passion. Like someone getting their dick sucked for the first time in a century.

“Oh Crowley, you _must_ indulge.”

Crowley passed his tongue over his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. Bitterness clung in the back of his throat, nothing to do with his coffee, which had been mostly milk and sugar anyway. He lifted a fork and aimed for Aziraphale’s plate, only for it to be knocked aside by the angel brandishing his knife like a sword.

“Not some of _mine_ , ridiculous. They haven’t run out in the kitchen, you know.” He sounded adorably petulant, which was a remarkable accomplishment for someone who had been scheduled to be executed an hour previous. For the sake of _crepes_.

As a show of force, Aziraphale confiscated Crowley’s fork before turning to hail their waiter. Crowley’s skin tingled where their fingers had brushed, and he pressed his hand into his lap, curled protectively as if burned.

Even after Crowley got his own crepes, eating without tasting, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the angel for longer than a few seconds, watching every bite and smile and hearing each hum and swallow. He wondered how long he would eat if Crowley just kept putting crepes in front of him. He wondered if Aziraphale would let him watch the whole time.

Aziraphale paid the bill and turned around to see Crowley holding out a pastry bag of chocolate brioche buns. He walked ahead of the angel as they left, hands in his pockets, smiling up at the sky.

~

_I imagined his body drawn in sections,  
_ _flank, ribs, and tenderloin, I rubbed  
_ _the blade to sparks, my stove walls  
_ _sweated, windows dripping._

~

_Mix quickly, or you’ll have scrambled eggs_ , the video had warned.

Crowley stares at the flecks of yellow rubbery egg mixed in with pancetta and noodles. Snarling, he hurls the entire affair at the wall. The metal bowl makes a resounding clang, the pasta clinging first to the concrete before slumping onto the floor in a miserable wet heap.

He stalks out of the flat, fuming, yanking open the door to the Bentley.

Letting himself be soothed by the pull of inertia on his body as he whips around street corners, Crowley guns it down alleyways, accelerates through yellow lights, gives some thoughtless pedestrians something to be grateful for on their way home.

When he pulls to the curb, Crowley looks over to see he’s parked in front of the bookshop. Sighing, he taps his pointer fingers on the wheel, watching movement visible underneath the pulled-down shades. A few minutes go by, then he sees Aziraphale usher out a few lank-haired university students and shut the door behind them.

Grinning in spite of himself, Crowley eases his body back in the seat and shuts his eyes. By now, he’s memorized Aziraphale’s movements after dealing with an unwanted customer, which was a redundant phrase in A.Z. Fell & Co. The angel would bustle about in a huff, righting any mislaid books, tutting and muttering about oily hands. Then he’d dust all the shelves for good measure, though absolutely none of them needed it. When he was calmed down, he would make a cup of cocoa (the special minty kind, that was only available for purchase at Christmas) and read at his desk until he remembered to turn the sign on the door to “Closed.”

Crowley also knew exactly what would happen if he went into the shop. Aziraphale would look up and smile at him with more friendliness and delight than Crowley had _ever_ deserved, even when he was an angel. He’d fix Crowley a cup of rooibos tea, or, if it was after six, pour him a hefty glass of wine. Once settled their respective chairs, they’d spend at least twenty minutes swapping complaints about university students. Halfway through, Aziraphale would switch from cocoa to wine (if it was after six) and top off Crowley, and that’s the rest of the night, allowing for natural topic switches.

Thinking about this, Crowley smiles, reassured by the uncomplicated certainty of their routine.

However.

In the past several months, up to and after the end that wasn’t, there was a certain moment in the evening that Crowley had begun to register with heart-pounding anticipation. It was usually around eleven, where the streets outside were quieter, bottles were emptier, and the conversation lulled, the two of them slumped down and easy. It was a certain moment where the air between them felt extremely thin, like a vacuum, and all it would take was one of them leaning in just a bit before they were both pulled together.

It had been a few weeks ago, that this certain moment had changed. He can’t remember the topic, but Aziraphale had stopped speaking in the middle of a thought. Crowley had picked his head up off the back of the sofa and noticed that the thin air between them was now quivering and full.

“I shouldn’t have said that to you,” he had told the floor, not meeting Crowley’s eyes, his wine glass clenched fast in both hands.

“Hmm? What’s that?” Crowley had felt choked, his voice little more than a whisper, looking intently at the top of Aziraphale’s head.

“…In the bandstand. About… I shouldn’t have… Why would I…” He had pressed the heel of his hand to one eye, looking like he was on the verge of crying.

Feeling suddenly sick, Crowley had scooted forward, to the edge of his seat, setting his wine glass on the floor. “Hey. No. It’s all right. You were panicking, yeah? You were scared. It’s all right.” When Aziraphale hadn’t moved, Crowley had reached over and gently took the hand away from the angel’s face, pressing his thumb down and rubbing hard into the center of the angel’s palm. “It’s all right, really, angel. I promise.”

Aziraphale had inhaled through his nose, blinking as he looked at their hands, then up at Crowley. They so rarely touched, and Crowley had been worried that the angel could feel how _hungry_ his body was for it. He hadn't been wearing his glasses, and there was nowhere to hide. He had held his breath, waiting for Aziraphale to take his hand away and slouch back into his seat, a return to normalcy.

But he hadn’t.

He had squeezed back, somewhat awkwardly around Crowley’s thumb, and Crowley had felt the angel’s steady pulse.

In the car, Crowley can see Aziraphale’s face at that moment, as clearly as if he was seeing it again right in front of him. His eyes had looked so dark, and ancient, and sad. But his pulse was reassuring and steady, his grip tightening, it allowed something to pierce Crowley’s heart, warmth spreading, until he felt it lining the inside of his veins.

The lights inside the bookshop go off, breaking Crowley out of his memory. He inhales suddenly, as if he’d been held underwater, then rubs his eyes with the back of his wrist, sunglasses sliding out of place. He turns the key in the ignition and pulls away.

~

Three weeks after the not-Armageddon, a delivery person brought a dozen pastries from Aziraphale’s favorite bakery on the other side of London. They refused tip and payment (“It’s already been taken care of, sir”).

Two minutes after Crowley received the delivery confirmation, his phone rang. Aziraphale stuttered, like he’d been caught in the middle of something, then he asked about the plants. He never mentioned anything about the pastries, but Crowley could hear his smile.

~

Not a lot of good food in London during The Blitz.

There was still a church. Some Nazis. It had to do as far as a get together was concerned. Crowley made sure to time his entrance perfectly, indulging himself in a bit of drama for their meeting. He let himself enjoy it, the white-knight bit. After all, the damsel in distress had never been so angelic.

But the real indulgence had been the books.

Upon taking the bag, the look in Aziraphale’s eyes had changed so completely, rapt with awe, a star going supernova. It reminded Crowley of the day the angel’s bookshop opened, his expression upon taking the first bite of a special lemon meringue pie Crowley had brought to celebrate. At the time, Crowley had never seen such beauty. Now it paled in comparison.

Something warm and prickly swelled inside Crowley’s chest, something that felt like pride but less sharp. It filled his lungs and pressed on his throat and he could barely say, “Lift home?”, picking his way back to the Bentley parked down the block. He heard Aziraphale follow him a few seconds later, moving unsteadily over the loose bricks and rubble.

On the drive back, Crowley watched the angel constantly out of the corner of his eye. He alternated between gripping the sides of the case tightly with both hands and flexing his fingers and running them over the leather seams. Crowley drove slowly even though the streets were deserted. Aziraphale looked overwhelmed enough as it was.

They pulled up in a half an hour, neither of them having spoken a single word. Crowley cut the engine and they stepped out of the car, closing the doors but not moving from their respective sides. It was eerily quiet apart from the air raid sirens, and the bookshop looked skeletal, dark and empty. Crowley tried to think of something, anything to say, but anything that presented itself was either utterly inadequate or humiliatingly transparent.

“Thank you again, Crowley,” Aziraphale put in eventually, his voice quiet, barely audible. Crowley got the impression that he was in pain, somehow.

“Come off it.” Crowley pulled his hat down lower over his forehead. “You’d have done the same for me.”

Aziraphale looked up at him suddenly, and their eyes met over the roof of the car. The angel looked alarmed.

Realization kicked Crowley in the chest. He had rescued Aziraphale many times over, but it had never gone the other way around. He’d never swept in to prevent Crowley from being beaten up, or shot, or executed. Aziraphale had never shown up at the last minute, blustered away thanks, then gone out for lunch after like it was all nothing. He'd never played the hero, because he'd never needed to play it. Angels were already the heroes.

Now, Aziraphale looked like he was finally considering rescuing Crowley as a possibility, and his mouth was twisting and pressing in a grimace, eyebrows pinching together.

Crowley felt he'd been doused in ice water. He had seen this expression before, on the faces of the people he’d tempted, after they had to look at consequences of their sins. He’d seen it on the angel, too, when Aziraphale watched self-proclaimed missionaries with swords or guns descend upon their unarmed neighbors, a group of men crowding around a resigned woman, a priest pulling hands away from a frightened child.

The mildest word for that expression was disgust.

“’Course, you probably aren’t supposed to waste your time on saving the irredeemable, eh?” He yanked open the car door, causing an awful squeal that echoed down the block. “Night, angel.” The door slammed shut and the car leapt away from the curb, leaving an angel alone with his books in the middle of a dark street.

He drove back to his flat but sat in his car outside the building, his hands gripping the wheel to stop them from shaking.

~

_Afterwards the house was a shell.  
_ _My tongue: scorched white.  
_ _I had to staple my stomach  
_ _down to the size of a lichee nut._

~

His first mouthful of carbonara wasn’t that bad. Actually, it was rather good. Could use some more pepper, but it was just as good as what he’d been served at Guido’s a few months ago. If anything, his noodles were better.

He made it two more times, just to be sure, adding a few more cranks of black pepper at the end.

It was good.

It was really fucking _good_.

When he put his head down on the pillow that night, he realized he’d been smiling for hours.

~

Crowley did not like to fuck. Not just for the sake of fucking, anyway.

Over the years, he had found it increasingly distasteful to involve his actual body in the temptation of a human. And if you think about it, it was really cheating just to _put_ doubt or interest into someone’s head, like other demons did. Too easy. Too manipulative. Just not Crowley’s style. It was _much_ more fun to tease, to flirt, to vaguely suggest, and watch the human give in to lust. He got especially good at finding the people already eyeing each other, sidling up to one of them, and offering precisely the right encouragements.

Of course, he indulged his body in various other ways. Vanity is a sin, not the most laudable in Hell’s eyes, but it’s good enough to maintain a constant, if dim, aura of evil. Besides, he’s never had a comparable sexual experience to the sensual, full-body feelings that come from well-tailored suits, silk pants, designer jeans, cashmere shirts. He took great satisfaction in breaking in leather boots until they were supple and compliant, wearing jackets until they creased to form to his body. His sheets were always cool and satin, begging for bare skin. He wrapped his body in luxurious materials, and in return, it lounged easily wherever it rested. In the Bentley, a vinyl booth, a park bench, a sofa in a bookshop, he sprawled like a sultan in the finest of robes. He didn’t need the occasional sexual tryst if he was luxuriating in constant low-grade sensuality.

He wasn’t even sure that _lust_ was the right word for his desires, anyway.

When the angel Aziraphale ate, he derived so much pure, earthly pleasure from every bite that merely to watch him eat turned Crowley into a voyeur. It was such a hedonistic display, and the simple thought of anyone else sharing a meal with his angel made Crowley simmer with jealousy.

Aziraphale ordered for himself most decadent dishes on the menu, the most expensive wines, the most complicated and fiddly desserts. Each bite he arranged meticulously on his fork, expertly working through his plate until the final perfect piece. He licked custard from the corners of his mouth, groaned over an especially flavorful piece of chicken, sucked the marrow from bones. If he was relaxed enough (and usually two or three glasses of wine in), he would swirl his fingertip around his empty plate, picking up the last bits of sauce or buttercream and sucking it off his finger, eyes closed. “Scrumptious,” he would sigh, amounting to post-coital levels of satisfaction, patting at his mouth with a napkin. It drove Crowley _mad_.

Sitting with his chin on his palm, elbow propped on the table, _staring_ as Aziraphale ate, he wondered if the angel was just as expressive when he ate alone. If he rubbed his hands together in anticipation of a roasted duck, if he tongued his pudding spoon clean, if he gave those little delicate hums of satisfaction tucking into a fruit tart, alone in his bookshop.

Other times, he found himself wondering if Aziraphale would be just as delighted to lick whipped cream off Crowley’s neck, to sip wine from his collarbones, to eat cherries out of the palm of his hand.

Pleasures of the flesh, indeed.

~

After the dinner itself was ready, he accomplishes the rest of the tasks in a day. They include a visit to a bookseller in Amsterdam who was under the impression that he owed Crowley his eternal soul, plus a quick blackmail in Burgundy for the wine.

Back in his flat, he attempts to make his dining table in the kitchen less utilitarian. He considers adding shelves of books then worries their contents would be too distracting. He tries candles, a tablecloth, and flowers, but everything seems over the top.

After an hour of deliberation, he settles on placemats and dinnerware in his own simple style. Anything too ornate or antique would be unacceptably obvious.

Then he waits. Until it rains.

“So sorry, but we are—”

“Aziraphale, it’s me.”

“Crowley.” He can hear the angel smiling and digs the nails of his free hand into his thumb. “How are you, dear?”

“Fine. I was just in Amsterdam for a few temptations, and one of the lads gave me a couple of first editions from the early 17th century. Wasn’t going to bother, but then I figured you might want to take a look. They’re in Dutch, but—”

“I’ll be right over. See you in a jiff!”

Crowley hangs up and takes a few breaths.

He snaps his fingers and Tchaikovsky plays, drifting through the flat, the sound echoing like it’s coming from another room, no matter which room you’re in. Not obvious. There’s a knock at the door.

The angel Aziraphale carries a bag and is untouched by the downpour that roars behind him. “The 17th century, you say?” he asks brightly by way of greeting, and Crowley feels the corners of his mouth twitch.

“Yeah, they’re just on the table through there.”

Setting himself on the sofa, Aziraphale eyes the books hungrily even as he takes out his equipment. Crowley leans against the doorframe, watching as the angel puts on the gloves and glasses, then sets the first book on a desk mat, opening the cover reverently.

“Ah, Elzevir! One of the oldest, most prominent—well, except for…” He drifts off into self-occupied mumblings before going silent. A minute in, Crowley can tell he’s thoroughly engrossed and unlikely to move from the spot.

“I’ll leave you to it, then?”

Aziraphale gives a slight, distracted nod, and Crowley backs out and into the kitchen.

~

The day before Crowley made his first attempt at pasta dough, Aziraphale insisted they go to the Bloomsbury Farmer’s Market. From what Crowley gathered, they were there specifically for one shop selling miniature pies, one for £5 or two for £8.

Crowley wandered up and down the row of tents, dodging kids with melted popsicle on their faces while Aziraphale agonized over his pie choices. He finally delighted the salesperson by purchasing one of each. When Crowley raised an eyebrow, Aziraphale clutched his bag closer and huffed, “It’s not like they’ll ever go _bad_.”

They walked back to the shop eating vegetable curry from Styrofoam boxes and sipping fresh-squeezed lemonade, discussing musicals with a movie adaptation that was actually worth a watch.

“All I’m saying is that it isn’t strictly _evil_ to feed a person to a plant, not when they’re already _dead_ ,” Crowley said, tapping the bookshop door closed behind him with his foot. “Trust me, I’m an expert on evil.”

Aziraphale had gone right to the kitchen to store his pies in the fridge, which was one of the few places in the flat that had escaped fate as a bookshelf. “Well, I’m the expert on _morality_ , and I know it isn’t _morally_ correct to do something to someone’s dead body without their previous consent.”

Crowley’s upper lip curled as he placed his own bag on the counter, taking out two containers of strawberries and setting them in the sink. “It’s not like you’d really be around to care, is it? End up in Heaven or Hell, you’re not really bothering about your body anymore.”

“Hmph.” The angel emerged from the fridge with a bottle of Moscato d’Asti, holding it up for Crowley to see. “Too much?”

Crowley shrugged. “Eh, why not. It’s Thursday.”

He scrounged for a cutting board as Aziraphale placed a glass for him on the counter then left the kitchen with his own glass and the bottle.

“If you get killed, I’ll dress your body up in tartan, and see how you like it.” From quality and distance of his voice, Crowley guessed the angel had settled in his chair, probably for the remainder of the evening.

“Ha. You can do whatever you like with my body, angel.”

The lack of a rejoinder made Crowley reconsider his words. “If I get killed, I mean.”

A soft hum of acknowledgement reached his ears. He assumed Aziraphale had abandoned the conversation in favor of reading.

After cleaning up his mess, Crowley was satisfied to see he’d been correct, and the angel was hunched over some slim volumes in his desk chair. Crowley set down the sliced strawberries on the desk, out of reach of wayward elbows, a fork clinking against the side of the ceramic bowl. Aziraphale glanced over, then looked up.

“What’s this for?”

Sliding his jacket off and throwing it vaguely at the coatrack, Crowley sank onto the couch with his wine and sighed. “Well, if you’d eaten them by hand, you’d fuss about getting juice all over your books.” He looked over and snapped his fingers so his coat hung itself properly, but he was watching Aziraphale out of the corner of his eye.

The angel didn’t look up, or move, or turn his head toward Crowley. But he was smiling at the bowl, and blinking several times, and he then shook his head once as if in wonder. Crowley saw the dim outline of an angelic halo start to form around the white-tufted head. His heart did something in his chest that would have been a medical marvel in a human, the sensation rather like a nebula forming, explosive and bright. He toed off his shoes and sipped his wine, noting that the sun felt especially friendly today.

~

An hour later, Crowley brings in two glasses of white wine, holding one out to Aziraphale. “Something to eat, angel?”

The angel looks up from his books and smiles. “Oh my, yes. Worked up quite an appetite.” He removes his glasses and gloves and leaves them on the coffee table, standing and taking the proffered wine from Crowley. “You really must tell me where you got them. I’ve never seen any books from the House of Elzevir in such condition. You know, the binding—”

He continues to prattle on, sounding immensely happy. Though his professor-like attire makes people assume he’s prone to lecture, he really only indulges in it when he’s especially excited and has a receptive audience. Or when he’s extremely nervous. Crowley remembers watching Aziraphale attempt to babble his way out of stoning by giving a brief history of the geological formations surrounding his would-be assailants. Luckily for the angel, the assailants were terrified of snakes. At least, they were terrified of twenty-foot-long black and red snakes that reared up and hissed.

Crowley takes him to the kitchen and seats him, places a steaming plate of carbonara in front of him, and sets the Chablis Cru Foret in easy reach before sitting himself down with his own plate. The rain batting against the large window on one side of the kitchen mutes the music somewhat, but its overcast glow is really just the thing.

Aziraphale is lifting a forkful to his mouth when he pauses. “You changed clothes.”

Crowley glances down at himself. “Thought I might dress for dinner.” Perhaps a suit was a bit… _obvious_. But it isn’t like he was wearing a _tie._ Besides, he’s hardly the more fussily dressed of the two of them.

Aziraphale looks a little suspicious, and Crowley’s throat tightens. “What, too much?” He’s going for mock-offended and coming out strangled. The angel doesn’t answer in favor taking of his first bite of pasta.

Immediately his expression melts into one of abject pleasure.

He closes his eyes, savoring, humming, chewing thoroughly, swallowing and licking his lips. Warmth blooms in Crowley’s stomach and he looks down at his own plate, heart skipping.

 _Finally_.

“Ohhh, this is—” the angel takes another bite, and seems to have completely forgotten about the suit or his enthusiasm for Dutch publishing families. He could swear that Aziraphale’s face was radiating light just a bit. Crowley could have leapt on the table and danced, barely managing to restrain a smile long enough to pick up his own fork. For a while, they eat to the quiet strains of Tchaikovsky and the comforting patter of rain.

“This is absolutely _ambrosian_ ,” Aziraphale groans when his plate is halfway empty, though he shows no signs of lagging enthusiasm to eat. Crowley simply nods, bringing his napkin up to hide a smile that made him feel he could burst.

~

_Thimbleful of broth, thimbleful  
_ _of gruel, the merest suggestion  
_ _floods my mouth with memory  
_ _so rich I practically drown._

~

The end of the world had been somewhat of a turning point.

For so many years, he’d indulged himself giving Aziraphale whatever he’d wanted. That was enough for him, to give things freely and receive the occasional lights-a-campfire-inside-your-chest smiles in return. He'd do whatever would make the angel happy, that was what he deserved.

And really, when the 21st century rolled around, things had finally started to feel settled.

Aziraphale had his bookshop, Crowley had his Bentley and his flat less than a mile away. There were enough people in the city that they could find enough miracles and temptations to add a little flourish of truth to their reports to head offices. They never said as much out loud, but London felt like _home_. Like their future stretched out comfortably in front of them, predictable and content.

So the moment that Crowley was handed the baby in the basket and the Earth started her final turns, all he could think about was Aziraphale.

Composers. Restaurants. The bookshops. Wine. Scotch. Cocktails. Innocent creatures. Musicals and all that. But with every single reason he gave Aziraphale why the world shouldn’t end, the nagging, self-aware voice in the back of his head was urging him to grab the angel by the shoulders and scream:

_Don’t you get it? Don’t you understand? We won’t have each other after this. This is the only place where we get to be together. If the world ends, I’ll never see you again._

That would have been too obvious for Aziraphale to take. Even more obvious than a miracle to save a bag of dusty old books. Crowley wasn't going to _beg_. No matter how badly he wanted it, he would not beg for mercy. He'd done it once, and it hadn't turned out.

Except then their plan to save their world fell apart.

And they couldn't find the Antichrist.

And the host of heaven was readying for battle.

And demons were chasing him, and the world was hurtling to its end, and it was all really happening after so much time, everything Crowley had ever loved and needed was rapidly slipping out of his grasp.

So, fuck it.

He’d begged.

Years he'd spent bandaging himself up with sarcasm and black clothes, hiding in shadows and behind dark sunglasses, building layers and making like he was immune to it, scoffing and shrugging, another unfeeling demon, and he'd willingly shed it all in less time than it took the kettle to boil. He'd laid it all down, a miserable tribute to his existence, heaped at Aziraphale's feet at the end of the world. Then Crowley had stood in front of him, as vulnerable and hopeful as a child.

 _Eve_ _n if this all ends up in a puddle of burning goo, we can go off together. We’re on our side. Angel, I’m sorry, I apologize, whatever I said, I didn’t mean it, get in the car, we can run away together—_

Aziraphale had frowned, and pulled away, and pushed Crowley away, saying things he didn’t mean because he didn’t want _this_ from Crowley, not like that, not so obvious, not where he had no plausible deniability, not where he had to look it in the eyes and say _yes_.

It was like being whipped, the skin flayed from his body in scorching strips, the feeling so familiar it was sickeningly comforting.

So, the first chance he got, Crowley switched back to his old tactics. Some Châteauneuf-du-Pape on a bench, waiting for a bus to London. Good start. Dinner at the Ritz, champagne. Then plastic cups of fruit. Slowly, Crowley added back the edible gestures. It worked. Aziraphale was letting him give again. He couldn't take back those words, but with Heaven and Hell off their back, maybe it would be different. Maybe, Aziraphale would want it more than he was afraid of it.

The strawberries were what had decided it for him. If just cutting up some berries made Aziraphale so delighted he accidentally manifested a halo, what would happen if Crowley cooked him a full meal?

So he found a video recipe for homemade carbonara and set out to discover the unknown.

~

“Where on earth did you get this?” Aziraphale’s plate is clean, his wine glass full of the Chablis Cru Foret, his eyes a bit glazed over. He looks rumpled, which is extremely difficult to accomplish when one is as buttoned-up as a Victorian schoolteacher. At least, he looks comfortable and satiated, relaxed, like he’s ready to stay in his spot for hours. He looks like something that belongs to Crowley.

Crowley feels as rumpled as Aziraphale looks. He fiddles with his glass, swirling around the final dregs before tossing the rest of it back, setting the glass down with a soft click. He stares directly at his own hand resting on the table.

“I made it.”

 _For you_ , he doesn’t add. Doesn’t think he has to. Not this time.

“You just miracled up the best carbonara I’ve had since Riccione 1953?”

Crowley inhales and says shortly, “Cooked it.”

His voice sounds pained, like someone trying to speak with four broken ribs. His lips press tightly together, and he can’t bring himself to look up. _Please_. _Please, not this time._

There’s a silence. “You cooked this. Without miracles?” The easy smile that had spread across the angel’s lips dies. His voice sounds far away, but his eyes are suddenly clear.

One shoulder twitches up and down, Crowley’s lips twisting into a frown. He tries to keep his tone casual, but his voice is rough and deep. “Like you said, angel. There’s no substitute for handmade pasta.”

“…Ah.”

The air between them is quivering and full.

Knowing that there’s nowhere left to hide, Crowley takes off his glasses and looks right into Aziraphale’s eyes. He thinks of the years spent laying the foundation for this, brick after brick of expensive dinners, surprise desserts, tins of biscuits, special teas, boxes of pastries, cases of wine. Now, sitting in a posh suit in front of the remains of a meal he cooked from scratch, he realizes that what he’s built is a glass house, and Aziraphale can see right through it all to his naked core. He’s never been this exposed, not even when he was begging, and it hurts, like the sun in his eyes.

The angel gets up abruptly, his chair scraping the concrete. “Just a moment,” he says, voice lilting high, then _vanishes_.

Crowley lets all the air out from his lungs and slumps over on the table. His wine glass tips, rolls off the table, and shatters on the concrete floor. The music stops.

That’s it.

It’s over.

This is no end-of-the-world panic. There is no one looking over their shoulders, no Ineffable Plan with which to claim a higher obligation. They were finally free, finally alone, and Aziraphale had left him.

The rejection stings, hot and sharp and burning. But that is nothing to the full-bodied _shame_ that swells in Crowley like bile rising. He has to face the _weeks_ of single-minded effort, all the time he had worked and planned and practiced and prepared this one meal, deluding himself over and over into believing the ridiculous possibility that his angel would _love_ him. That he would even _accept_ this transparent, surrendering offer of Crowley’s love.

He shouldn’t have even _tried_. Everything had been good, back to normal after the world almost ended. Whether or not Aziraphale had been conscious of the demon’s affection, he’d let Crowley give him whatever he wanted to give.

And Crowley had been happy with that. He’d been allowed to dote and try and rescue and worship this heavenly creature for his entire existence. Even if it _was_ a punishment, it was also the best thing in his life, the only thing he'd lived for, the reason he'd tried to save the world. He’d felt _good_ , giving to Aziraphale. He’d sometimes even felt worthy. But he’d wanted too much, had moved too fast, had asked to take up more room in Aziraphale’s heart, knowing full well he was, in fact, completely unworthy. And now he’d just set everything he had to live for aflame.

With fucking _pasta_.

There had never been anything more _pathetic_.

“Crowley?”

The demon lifts his head from the table in shock, and through blurred vision he sees the outline of Aziraphale holding something large and green. He blinks and presses into his eyes with thumb and index finger, sitting up.

“Good heavens, are you all right?” He hears the angel come closer.

“What? What’re you doin’?” He blinks and stands up, eyes finally focusing on Aziraphale and a large leafy plant with red flowers that the angel is setting on the table.

“Are you ill?” Aziraphale looks uncertain, hesitant to reach out, which doesn’t suit him, and Crowley tamps down the urge to soothe.

“No. No. Just. Thought you left. Without your books,” he adds, unable to prevent outdoing himself on the whole pathetic scale. Fuck, he should really hide his masochism better.

“Oh. Crowley.”

He snatches up his sunglasses and vanishes all evidence of their meal, going immediately for the door. “Kind of you to offer, but I’m all set for pity, thanks. Don’t forget your books this time.” Crowley could have left the flat himself, but the prospect of crawling into his bed and going unconscious for several decades was highly appealing. He might choose death except it would send him back to Hell.

“Aren’t you going to ask me about the plant?”

Crowley stops. He’d actually barely registered it. Flexing his fingers and wiggling them, he glances over his shoulder to see Aziraphale squeezing three fingers of one hand with the other, shifting from foot to foot.

Crowley turns around but doesn’t say anything. Aziraphale takes it as a cue and steps to the side, waving a hand to present the plant.

“Well. This is _anthurium andraeanum_. Sometimes known as the painter’s palette, or flamingo flower. Its name comes from the Greek words _anthos_ , meaning flower, and _oura_ , meaning a tail. Because of that.” He gestures to the pale stalk that came from the leaf-shaped red flower like a continuation of its stem.

“Of course, it’s actually called a spadix. Which. I’m sure you knew.” He glances over at Crowley and takes a shaky breath.

“Now, this plant is actually the third one I bought, ah, the first two having died, as I discovered there’s not really enough light in the bookshop.” He gives a short laugh, fingering the leaves gently, and then clears his throat, eyes firmly on the plant.

“But, I kept this one on a special spot in the window in the upstairs flat, and I talked to it, and I even got a plant mister, so it was growing quite nicely, and then I found out that it’s actually rather toxic, in fact, my fingers were all red for a week, but, I gave it a good talking-to and it’s behaved itself since for the most part, and gotten quite big and leafy in the past month, too big for the windowsill anymore, and it already has a name, and. Well, I _got_ it in the first place because, I thought, since none of your plants had flowers, I wanted you to have one with some color, and I figured you might be rather fond of this one that was, well. A little bit of a bastard.”

Hope was a dangerous thing. A little spark of it could burn someone up from the inside.

Crowley takes off his glasses again, coming a few measured steps closer as the angel lets go of the plant and watches Crowley from the corner of his eye.

“What’s its name?”

Aziraphale looks up at him, something very breakable in his eyes. “Anthony II.”

Crowley laughs, and Aziraphale is smiling, so bright and so unburdened it seems impossible that Crowley could have doubted it, that Aziraphale would love him, that he _had_ loved him, he’d loved him so much that he bought a poisonous plant and took care of it in his shop for weeks in _secret_ , because Aziraphale was _perfect_ , in all his flaws and doubts and fussy particulars he was _perfect_.

He knows this isn’t all, it wasn’t going to erase all the pain or heal all the wounds. But with Aziraphale standing there in his kitchen, smiling just at him, actually glowing, Crowley can see halo and wings and he's filling the place with ethereal light, for the first time, Crowley lets hope run rampant through him.

“My dear,” Aziraphale says gently, taking Crowley into his arms, letting him bury his face in the angel’s neck, and Crowley thinks he might start smoldering from how _good_ it feels. “I’m so very sorry it’s taken me this long.”

“Don’t.” His voice is muffled, and breaking, and he doesn’t care. “Don’t you dare apologize. Not right now.”

“What would you like, then? You can have anything you want. I’ll give you anything in the world.”

Crowley has to take a moment because that _hurts_ somehow but also feels amazing and he’s never felt warmer in his life. He’s pretty sure that Aziraphale used to be a star, before he was an angel, which was impossible because stars came after angels, but maybe God saw Aziraphale and thought, _I would like to make something so beautiful._

“Would you stay?”

Aziraphale’s arms squeeze around him, and Crowley can feel his familiar smile against his skin.

“Always.”

~

_Let me cook you some dinner.  
_ _Sit down and take off your shoes  
_ _and socks and in fact the rest  
_ _of your clothes, have a daquiri,  
_ _turn on some music and dance  
_ _around the house, inside and out,  
_ _it’s night and the neighbors  
_ _are sleeping, those dolts, and  
_ _the stars are shining bright,_  
 _and I’ve got the burners lit  
_ _for you, you hungry thing._

~

**Author's Note:**

> The poem interspersed is "[Appetite](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53263/appetite-56d23266618ab)" by Rynn Williams. The poem at the end is "[The Love Cook](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49221/the-love-cook)" by Ron Padgett.
> 
> Let me know if I should write a sequel. I have ideas.


End file.
